Christmas classic gets new, wonderful life as radio drama

PALMER — The characters are familiar — George Bailey, Mr. Potter and Clarence, Angel Second Class — and we know the lines by heart — “Every time a bell rings an angel gets his wings.”

But there was something new and wonderful about the production of the Christmas classic “It’s a Wonderful Life” brought to life Friday and Saturday on stage at Colony High School.

While the more than 20 actors and actress who gave life to the script were dressed and coifed to reflect the styles of the 1930s and 1940s, the emphasis this time wasn’t on memorizing lines or projecting one’s voice so that all those listening could hear.

For the first time in Colony High School history, the drama department’s latest show was performed for live audiences in the theater Friday and Saturday, but folks in the Palmer and Sutton area could listen to the show on the radio at KVRF 89.5 FM, or people anywhere in the world could stream it live online at radiofreepalmer.org.

CHS Drama teacher Brian Mead said this is the first time the high school has done a radio drama and broadcast it live on radio and the Internet.

“To do a radio show — one that is actually aired on the radio — is a first for Colony drama, and hopefully not our last,” Mead wrote in his director’s notes in the front of the program.

CHS’s radio production of “It’s Wonderful Life” featured 21 speaking parts and nearly as many people working behind the scenes on details such as lighting, costumes, stage managers, sets and sound effects, Mead said.

The classic black-and-white movie by the same name was released in 1946. The script by Frank Capra was based on the short story “The Greatest Gift” written in 1943 by Philip Van Doren Stern.

Part parable, the story reminds, “No one is poor who has friends.”

Through George Bailey’s eyes, the audience sees his dreams of college and travel ebb. When he gives up and decides to end it all on the bridge outside Bedford Falls he meets Clarence, who is there to show him what his life added to his hometown.

“It’s easier to want what you get than to get what you want,” Clarence advises George.

As a nation in the midst of two wars and recovering from a years-long recession, the play’s theme and George’s story seems more timely and relevant than ever.

Mead said two things made the live radio production possible: Radio Free Palmer and the Internet.

After six years of scheming, dreaming and hard work, the community radio station began broadcasting during the Alaska State Fair this summer.

“Community radio is the baby brother to public radio,” Radio Free Palmer Board President David Cheezem told the audience between acts. “The focus is on local issues and local entertainment that is more relevant, more specific to you.”

On stage, actors danced between microphones reading their various roles, set managers adjusted microphones and the crew at the sound effects table slammed doors and made the imaginary phone ring and glasses clink for the listening audience.

Also a Radio Free Palmer board member, Mead said the decision to let the audience see behind the scenes was purposeful. “We intentionally played this a little more at ease.”

But folks used to accessing podcasts of school board and assembly meetings from the Radio Free Palmer website may be disappointed to learn the show was aired live and was not recorded for later broadcast.

“You had to hear it live,” Mead said.

The radio drama is one of several shows Mead and the CHS drama department will produce this year. He said he looks for variety in genres and styles to give students and patrons a well-rounded theater experience.

“We try to give the kids an experience here that is pre-professional training,” Mead said. “It’s as close as we can get to what they might expect in the real world.”

The show also taught Mead a bit about his family history, too.

Listening to his father reminisce with an old high school buddy, Mead discovered that his grandmother, Louise Starkey, and two of her friends wrote a sketch for their sorority at Northwestern University that became a wildly popular dramatic series sponsored by Colgate-Palmolive.

Called “Clara, Lu and Em,” it was radio’s first daytime soap opera, Mead said.

“Those horrid daytime TV shows are all my grandmother’s fault,” he said.

Contact Heather A. Resz at heather.resz@frontiersman.com or 352-2268.